Insider Unveils an Important Development in Brayden Schenn Trade Rumors

The St. Louis Blues have come out of the 4 Nations break on a heater, going 4-1-1, including a four-game winning streak before yesterday's loss to an elite Dallas Stars club. That run has all of a sudden got them squarely in the Wild Card hunt in the Western Conference, just one point back of the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks who are tied for that last playoff opening.

All of this has potentially changed things on the trade front for St. Louis, as noted by insider Darren Dreger on TSN's Insider Trading. He says that their interest in trading Brayden Schenn has now been been reined in:

(GM) Doug Armstrong and the Blues have said all along that 'We don't have to trade our captain, he's under contract here.' Maybe they revisit this in the off-season. So he is not going to soften on the expectation, the ask of what it would take to consider trading Brayden Schenn... They're right in the thick of things.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were reportedly the team hottest on the trail of Schenn, hoping to reunite him with his Stanley Cup-winning coach Craig Berube from their days together with the Blues in 2019. Berube even spoke about his former player in glowing terms last week after Schenn reached the milestone of 1,000 games played.

The price that the Blues had set for acquiring Schenn was extremely high, something like, in Toronto's case, their 2026 first-rounder plus one of their top prospects, either Easton Cowan or Fraser Minten. Certainly a high price for a player who's 33, and has three more years on his deal at a $6.5 million cap hit.

After three straight 20+ goal seasons, Schenn has cooled down to just 12 goals thus far this year, with 37 points in 61 games. He has 151 hits, however, and is on pace for his highest mark in that category in about eight years.

This development may lead the Leafs to look elsewhere to fill their top need of a third-line center.